Abstract:
This award supports a five-year collaborative project to study the physical-properties of the planned deep ice core and the temperature of the ice in the divide region of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Data include depths of crusts and annual layers observed visually in the ice core, density of the ice core determined by flotation in isooctane, and images and counts of bubble number-density. Data sets will be completed and extended under the follow-on grant to this one.

Purpose:
The intellectual merit of the proposed research is to provide fundamental information on the state of the ice sheet, to validate the integrity of the climate record, to help reconstruct the climate record, and to understand the flow state and history of the ice sheet. This information will initially be supplied to other investigators and then to the public and to appropriate databases, and will be ... published in the refereed scientific literature. The objectives of the proposed research are to aid in dating of the core through counting of annual layers, to identify any exceptionally warm intervals in the past through counting of melt layers, to learn as much as possible about the flow state and history of the ice through measurement of size, shape and arrangements of bubbles and other features, to identify any flow disturbances through these indicators, and to learn the history of snow accumulation and temperature from analyses of bubbles and borehole temperatures combined with flow modeling and use of data from other collaborators. These results will then be synthesized and communicated. Failure to examine cores can lead to erroneous identification of flow features as climate changes, so careful examination is required. Independent reconstruction of temperature rate provides important data on climate change, and improves confidence in interpretation of other climate indicators. By contributing to all of these and additional issues, the research should be of considerable value.

Description:
The U.S research community is conducting a deep ice coring project in West Antarctica for studies of climate, ice sheet history and cryobiology. This project is collecting a deep ice core from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) ice flow divide and integrating approximately 40 separate but synergistic projects to analyze the ice and interpret the records.